ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., JULY, 1916. 



The Need of Carefulness in Identification. 



One of the common complaints of the time in entomologi - 

 cal, nay zoological circles is the difficulty of obtaining the aid 

 of specialists to identify material. Every specialist becomes 

 flooded, even overwhelmed, with the quantity of animals, of 

 insects, which he is desired to determine. Delays of months 

 or of years ensue and he who wishes his collections examined 

 by competent authority must often send them to the one who 

 will report on them the soonest, rather than to the one whose 

 knowledge and carefulness are greatest. The conscientious 

 specialist himself is obliged to decline to add to the tasks 

 which the eager collector or museum officer presses upon him. 



Under all the conditions, it is inevitable that some, not 

 really fitted to identify species, take up the work without a 

 full realization of all the safeguards to identification that 

 honest work demands. It is not enough to compare specimens 

 with others already tagged, it may be erroneously. Constant 

 recourse must be had to original descriptions and to other 

 published sources of exact information. Comparison of speci- 

 mens is, indeed, important, for thereby the confounding of 

 two or more forms under one name is discovered. The ulti- 

 mate appeal is, of course, the comparison with types, but few 

 of us have access to these courts of last resort. 



The constant checking up of new material, as well as that 

 previously determined (including types where possible), willi 

 the literature is the obvious duty of everyone who undertakes 

 to pass definitely on the systematic status of speciments of nat- 

 ural history. 



> 



A Correction for Parnassius smintheus (Lep.). 



I chanced to see a recent issue of ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS last night, 

 and noticed under your article on Parnassius that I am quoted (Vol. 

 xxvii, page 213) as recording smintheus from southeast of Calgary. 

 This should be southwest. The correction is rather important as every- 

 where southeast of Calgary is open prairie ; there the species is not in 

 the least likely to occur. F. IT. WOLLEY Don. 



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